On August 17, the United Nations propaganda machine rolled into Toronto to promote its 1994 State of World Population report. A press conference was held to publicize the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, to be held in Cairo in September.
UN Population Projections
World Population
1994 5.6 Billion
1998 6.0 Billion
2025 8.5 Billion
Areas of greatest population increase – Asia, Africa, Latin America
Greatest increase – Africa 2.9% per year
Slowest increase – Europe 0.3% per year
North America – 1.1% per year
The central theme of the State of the World report is population control through “Choices and Responsibilities” and the plan of action is revealed in the opening paragraph.
Calling for world-wide abortion on demand, the report suggests that “if barriers to free choice are removed, the overall result is smaller families and slower population growth.”
The report basically calls on world governments to implement the “widening of women’s range of reproductive choices.” It describes expanded choice as “an end unto itself” but claims choice is also “increasingly recognized as a stimulus to national and international economic and social change.”
Michael Vlassof, a senior technical officer with the UN Population Fund set the tone for the press conference by stating that the “reproductive revolution” had started.
Ann Phillips from the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women was asked about the emerging linkage between the Pill and breast cancer and whether the UN was concerned breast and cervical cancer would reach epidemic proportions if widely distributed in the developing countries. Phillips admitted the links between the pill and Globe and Mail did take place and was a large concern but did not provide any solution.
Bonnie Green of the United Church called these concerns “red herrings” and insinuated that this sort of questioning was irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Shree Mulay of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women claimed the report’s recommendations might backfire. Countries could use the UN mandate to implement “coercive measures against women” such as forced sterilization and irreversible contraception. She pointed out the UN approval policy in China of forced abortion and sterilization and suggested that this could be the case in other countries if the UN mandate is accepted in Cairo.
The well-documented aims of the Cairo conference have been largely opposed by the Vatican and some Latin American countries. However, late in August, the Globe and Mail reported that Vatican officials had met with Key Iranian and Lybian official in an effort to build support against the UN agenda.
Earlier, professors at the Al Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, one of the top Islamic learning centres, denounced the September conference as working towards an agenda which was “opposite of the basic precepts that Islam has laid down.”
